Explaining the Demographic Transition: Institutional Factors in Fertility Decline1

Autor: C. Shannon Stokes
Rok vydání: 2010
Předmět:
Zdroj: Rural Sociology. 60:1-22
ISSN: 0036-0112
DOI: 10.1111/j.1549-0831.1995.tb00560.x
Popis: There is a need for institutional and social organization changes in agricultural productivity and womens role in production lineage and family systems in developing countries especially Sub-Saharan Africa. Fertility behavior occurs in the context of the cultural and institutional environment. Institutions contain ideational elements of belief represented in the culture and have the ability to survive changes in society. Institutional change occurs through the social behavior of individuals and is stimulated by changes in the economic resource and technological bases of society. The literature on demographic transition explains how transitions in birth and death rates occur but few theories explain why. The theoretical and empirical literature is heavily represented by decision-making models of household production functions and applied microeconomic theory. Cleland has raised serious questions about the applicability of culture and institution-free models to fertility in developing countries. Rural sociologists could play an important research role in examining the links between agriculture and fertility and that research must involve multilevel analysis and multiple data collection methods. Large scale surveys need to be supplemented with intensive micro-level studies of a few communities. Analysis should provide an in-depth knowledge of how key institutions work in communities a comparison between communities and model development that simultaneously includes individual and contextual variables. It is likely that development of the agricultural sector greater non-farm work for men and women and improvements in social services will greater affect whether fertility decline or continued high fertility will occur. Diversity of African lineage and family systems related to fertility patterns between countries and within countries defies gross generalization for Sub-Saharan Africa. Oversimplification detracts from the study of the impact of traditional patriarchal systems on the status and well-being of women.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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